1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a computer program, more specifically to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a computer program which perform a process for generating a playlist (reproduction sequence information) that can reproduce contents (such as pieces of music, still images, and moving images) in accordance with user's tastes.
2. Description of the Related Art
In reproducing apparatuses for various contents such as pieces of music, still images, and moving images, for example, in apparatuses that read a content from a recording medium such as a DVD, a HDD, and a flash memory having a large number of contents stored thereon for reproducing the content, some of them have a configuration in which a list that decides the reproduction sequence of contents, that is, a playlist can be set for reproduction processing in the order of the contents described in the playlist. A user can continuously reproduce contents, pieces of music, for example, in accordance with the playlist.
Although the playlist can be generated in such a way that a user confirms contents stored in a medium and arranges the contents in a reproduction sequence in accordance with user's favorites, such a method is also implemented that a playlist is automatically generated in accordance with a user's listening/viewing history, for example. For instance, there is a technique of generating a playlist in which a distance (such as a cosine function) between user taste information that is generated by accumulating the attributes (such as titles, artists, genres, and reviews) of pieces of music listened by a user so far and a reproducible piece of music is found to set a piece of music with a shorter distance in a playlist and pieces of music that the user is considered to like are continuously reproduced. Moreover, such a technique of generating a playlist is also proposed that pieces of music with a distance closer to a number reproduced just before are continuously reproduced. In addition, as contents to be set in a playlist, there are various contents such as pieces of music, still images, and moving images, but in the discussions below, a piece of music is taken as a typical example for discussion.
However, when a playlist is generated in accordance with user taste information generated based on a user's listening/viewing history in the past, basically piece of music in similar tunes are to be continuously reproduced. For example, in the case in which user taste information indicates that a user is fond of slow numbers, or in the case in which a piece of music reproduced just before is a slow number, there is a problem that slow numbers are continuously reproduced to bore the user.
As a method of solving this problem, a method is proposed in which a playlist is generated in such a way that a particular attribute of a piece of music such as the tempo of a piece of music to be reproduced is changed. For example, Patent Reference 1 (see JP-A-2002-333892) discloses such a technique of generating a playlist.
In addition, Patent Reference 2 (see JP-A-2006-293246) discloses such a technique that certain fluctuations are given between the previous and next numbers with respect to the sequence of reproducing pieces of music, whereby a user is prevented from being bored.